Producing an embroidered image on fabric from a custom design is still an art, rather than a science. The main reason for this is that the semantics and intent of the supplied custom design may be difficult to detect in an automated fashion. In addition, the task of translating an image into stitches of colored threads requires interpretation and artistic judgment during key parts of the process. The best quality embroidered designs are made by skilled artists. These designs retain the intent of the original source art and flow cleanly through the manufacturing process, with reduced thread breaks, color changes, and machine wear.
There are many commercial systems that provide a partial solution for automated production of embroidery from a digital image. Typically these systems start with a raster image and perform these steps:                1. Translate the Raster image into a vector image through well known methods.        2. Apply a stitch pattern and color to each region of the vector image.        3. Determine stitching for underlayment using stored data.        4. Determine stitch order based on minimizing connecting stitches.        5. Output a file containing instructions which embroidery software may edit.        
Typically, editing is required to fix or optimize the automatically generated design. Thus, it is desirable to provide a system and method that allows a consumer to provide user content to generate customized embroidery on a product and it is to this end that the system and method are directed.